In the summer of 2011, I nearly gave up writing altogether. That seems a bit silly now, considering all the stories that have happened since, but at the time we were winding up both Defense Command and His Majesty’s New World, and all I had left to work with was a loose collection of ideas […]
Less than three weeks ago, I was clinging to my seat aboard a Beechcraft 1900D as we approached the runway in Deer Lake. After a seven hour wait in St. John’s, I’d managed to get aboard a plane that would take me across Newfoundland, but it was going to be an eventful flight. St. John’s […]
The pun was so bad. Sitting in the passenger seat of Matt LeDrew’s car as we pulled away from St. John’s Airport, I was immediately reminded of just what sort of nemesis Engen’s founder really is: the kind who invents shockingly bad puns. And apparently this particular pun had been put into service at Sci-Fi […]
Let’s be honest: fiction writing can be a pretty antisocial business. From the research that goes into crafting a story, to the time spent at the keyboard tapping it out, to the hours of editing, authors are obliged to spend a great deal of time locked inside their own minds. This is why some people […]
It’s quite impossible for me to be fashionably late, so this week I’m going to be just plain late. As previously mentioned, I’m going to turn up at Sci Fi on the Rock this weekend, but I won’t be on the ground for the entire event. The convention kicks off on Friday afternoon and wraps up […]
Around a decade ago, a new annual tradition began in Newfoundland: Sci-Fi on the Rock. The first convention of its kind in my homeland, it started as a day-long event in Mount Pearl (the city that neighbors St. John’s), and I was lucky enough to be the first guest. That trip was a bit of […]
Last December, I made the five-hour drive from Edmonton back to the place where it all began to come together: Lethbridge, Alberta. Lethbridge is one of Alberta’s smaller cities, currently boasting a population of some 90,000, and from 1996 to 1999, it was the town we Iceberg partners called home. It was in Lethbridge where […]
I have very few regrets when it comes to Defense Command. One lament continues to be that I never changed Ken Barron’s first name… because forever more, people will think I’m him. I’m not. Or, at least, I don’t want you to think I am. Whatever. The second lament is much more important: it wasn’t […]
Happy New Year! It’s 2016, which means much of this year will be spent celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Defense Command series. You can also expect more from Champions — I probably owe readers some author notes after the novellas of 1943. But for my first note of the year, I have to talk […]
Fast-paced, irreverent, and sometimes heart-wrenching, the Defense Command series by Kenneth Tam made its debut in 2006 at Toronto Trek –– then Canada’s largest fan-run science fiction convention. In 2016, this adventurous military science fiction series officially turns ten, and Iceberg Publishing will mark this milestone in a number of exciting ways. The anniversary celebration started […]
It’s been more than a year since we ended the Champions of 1942 on a rather unapologetic cliffhanger, and the only penance I can offer for that slight is that there’ll be no waiting between installments of the Champions of 1943. Today, all five novellas have launched across all major ebook services. Getting here has […]
There’s plenty to look forward to at the end of this month. On November 24th, all five Champions novellas for the of 1943 will be released at once, so readers waiting after last year’s cliffhanger in Progeny will finally be able to stop sending me angry messages. I’ll write more about what to expect in […]
Today marks 21 years since my father passed away. Every day before and every day since, his strength and his love have been a constant in my life. And my gratitude is without limits, for the certainty of the things I knew and know… for the love that will never end… for the gift of […]
I’ve been surrounded, this past week, by the energy, excitement and anxiety that inevitably accompany the start of a new school year. It’s probably not surprising, then, that when I decided to post a throwback Thursday photo on my Facebook page, I gravitated towards school pictures, ultimately choosing my first one ever from Kindergarten. White […]
As I mentioned in my last post, the Iceberg partners were in Gros Morne, Newfoundland again this summer. It was our fifth trip to the area in five years. Truth is, we love that part of the world so much we’ve been accused of working for Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism. We don’t, of course, though […]
Navy stories are tough to get right – particularly in the modern era. The setup usually sounds appealing: an ensemble of characters working together within a ship that is a character all on its own. But when you get into the practicalities of storytelling, the complications are plenty. Those characters, for instance, are stratified by […]
The Iceberg Publishing partners are currently in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland. In addition to technically being something of a vacation –– anyone who runs their own business will tell you there really is no such thing –– this year we’re spending part of our time here shooting video related to both historical and upcoming […]
You learn a lot when you moderate writing panels. While I was appearing as a guest at the Toronto Trek convention around ten years ago, I chaired an author panel about writing female characters. It was there that I picked up a piece of advice from one of my colleagues, which I remember to this […]
I’ve been thinking about home a lot lately –– home as the city where I lived for 15 years until last October… home as the place I currently reside, still unfamiliar in so many ways… but mostly home as the rugged island in the North Atlantic known as Newfoundland. There’s something about ‘the Rock’, as […]
My mother died nine years ago today. Nine. A cancer diagnosis on May 5th. Surgery on May 16th to remove a mass from her abdomen. Intubated on May 21st because lungs weakened from tuberculosis (TB) were filling with fluid. Coming off the ventilator on May 23rd and rallying for my brother Steve’s birthday. Deteriorating throughout […]